


So Many Things To Do

by Laetitia_Laetitii, SaxSpieler



Category: Runescape
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Construction, Gen, Horror, Medical Horror, organ fabrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9553718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaxSpieler/pseuds/SaxSpieler
Summary: So many things to do. So many steps to complete, and only one set of hands to accomplish everything. Yet, he wouldn't have it any other way. This is his project after all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Collaboration fic between myself and Laetitia_Laetitii (who also came up with the idea/prompt).

At first glance, the workshop might’ve belonged to any crafter, carpenter, or artist.

A desk, papers with sketches, schematics, and notes carefully arranged in small piles.

A set of bookshelves, some empty, others with carefully organized artifacts and bits of machinery, and yet others, stacked with crumbling tomes and crisp notebooks alike, being used for their optimal purpose.

A lathe in one corner, wood curls swept into a neat little pile at one end.

A carpenter’s bench, an island across from the lathe, upon which sat wooden and metal parts that, although meticulously laid out and organized, suggested no particular form yet.

A table kept immaculately clean, upon which jeweler’s tools sat.

On second glance, however, the crafter, carpenter, and artist in question was hardly ordinary.

A rack of surgical tools, gleaming in the low glow of the sturdy, practical Dorgeshuun heat lamp hanging over the fish tank on the second bench nearby.

A bell jar, contents concealed by moisture and mist.

A wall covered in esoteric diagrams written in Teregardian, painstakingly translated into Infernal.

A rack of labelled and draped cages, within which corncob and cotton bedding shuffled underneath tiny clawed feet. An occasional squeaking was the only thing that suggested their contents to the unaware.

Footsteps echoed in the darkness, drawing closer to the intricate, knobless, and lockless door across from the lathe. They stopped just shy of it and, though no keys jingled, something within the door clanked and shifted before it swung open on well-oiled hinges. 

As it opened, there was a gust of cool air and the smell of dank cellars, out of place in the neat little workshop. When the door closed again with a barely audible click, the room was no longer empty.

His normal attire of opulent silks had been traded out for a set of, less aesthetically-pleasing yet far more sturdy, workrobes, over which a thick apron was tied. A pair of rubber gloves protected his hands - as he ran his fingers over each other habitually, the material squeaked and squelched, forcing his hands to his sides lest he have to endure that annoying sound any longer.

Sighing, he took in the state of the room and prepared to work.

_So many things to do._

It had been several days since he had had the time to come down here. It was atrocious just how many matters he had to take care of, researching this, fetching that, and all the while making sure each necessary preceding step was complete before he began on the next one. It could be quite bewildering, but yet, immensely satisfying.

Humming to himself tunelessly, he proceeded from workstation to workstation, inspecting the components on display. 

His first stop was the carpenter’s bench. On it, and on the racks around it lay the body parts.

A torso scaffold creating a lanky, top-heavy silhouette.

Limbs turned from only the finest and sturdiest woods he could find, sanded and varnished - with fireproof varnish, just in case - by the same hands that now checked the quality of the varnish, assuring that it was drying evenly and cleanly.

Joints with a far greater range of motion than any human forged from runite, tendon springs that would facilitate said motion forged from mithril, more flexible than its fellow metals, yet still sturdy.

Hands and claws from carved wood and molded orikalkum, painted a matte black for visual appeal.

A furnace-stomach, linked to a boiler and a soul extraction array, designed and built on the very desk it sat upon. And next to it, still only half finished, the intricate device of crystal and diamond that would hold the power source.

He ran a finger down its side, hearing a barely audible hum from the glass. Then, leaving the rest of the parts be, he continued to the corner, and stopped to inspect the mask.

Ceramic, white as bone at the moment, without paint or other embellishment, it hung there, watching over the project in reverent silence.  
He’d leave painting it for last. Before he could do it, he’d have to put the body together, and see what kind of a _feel_ it had. What kind of _character._ He knew exactly what kind of an expression he wanted it to have, but so far he had never been quite able to capture his vision in paint. The sketches covered the wall behind the mask-stand, tacked carelessly atop each other. Many of them were good, but something about the eyes, or something about the set of the lips was never entirely right.

He’d have to wait. Put the rest of it together, and then he’d know what kind of a face it should have.

He cupped the jaw of the mask in his hand, running his fingers over the hinges and connection points that he would use to mount the final - and, in his opinion, a candidate for the most important - piece of the puzzle into place.

The mouth.

Which reminded him of something.

He needed to feed the mouth before he did anything else tonight.

Releasing the mask, he strode over to the rack of cages and lifted the drapes from each one before he found a suitable subject.

A lone mouse. Female. Five months old. Twenty-five grams last time he weighed her. She had dropped a litter three and a half weeks ago - her final one, Sliske had decided after weaning the pups. He removed her cage from the rack, setting it adjacent to the fish tank and cracking open the lid.

Ever so tenderly, he picked the mouse up by the base of her tail, letting her rest in the palm of his hand. Her whiskers twitched as she sniffed along his fingers, and he chuckled when she took a fold of his glove in her teeth and began to gnaw. A useless little defense mechanism - he could hardly feel her teeth through the glove, let alone be hurt by them. Yet, he enjoyed watching the attempt. The struggle. The fight. The hum of her tiny heart against his palm.

He stroked the top of her head, ignoring her continued attempts to shear his fingers off before easing the top of the tank open with his free hand.

Cloudy liquid, thick and enriched with growth factors, lay within, its occupant out of sight - likely near the bottom as it always was. He held his hand, the mouse still held by her tail between his index finger and thumb, over the tank and, in one swift motion, dropped her in.

A surprised squeak later, and the mouse was paddling industriously, churning the liquid with her paws.

She paddled along the edge of the tank, around and around endlessly, looking for purchase against the smooth glass.

Paddled and paddled and paddled some more.

Until a single bubble rose from the bottom of the tank, breaking against the surface and releasing a whiff of rotting flesh into the air.

Then…

_SNAP_

The mouse disappeared in a flash of teeth and lashing tongue, the tank water becoming swirled with rich red blood as the mouth worked.

_Ah, the mouth._

If not his favorite part of the project, then second only to the mask.

It had been a simple matter to acquire the base structures for the mouth parts.

The jaws of a Chthonian demon, the teeth, carefully plucked from some deep-sea creature and sanded to fit, and the tongue of a bloodveld. Metal rods and screws had been enough to hold the bone structure together, yet the flesh was another issue entirely. Incompatibility would have certainly halted the project before it had begun - the immune cells of the Chthonian, fish, and bloodveld would have torn the foreign bits of each other apart.

Yet, even that hurdle had been overcome.

From acetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, extract from the duodenum of a passing wanderer, and the soap from the poor man’s pocket, Sliske had mixed a wondrous little solution that had stripped the flesh of all its pesky little cells, leaving only a ghostly scaffold behind. Ever so carefully, he had then seeded the scaffold with - healthy, of course - cultured cells gathered from Gregorovic’s own mouth by the formerly-good doctor and stored for _in vitro_ experimentation.

The flesh had regrown with time and care in the shape it was before and serving the same function, yet it was no longer Chthonian, fish, or bloodveld flesh.

It was, well and truly, Gregorovic’s flesh, now, not unlike its companion, which hung in the bell jar on the other end of the table, kept moist and pristine by magic.

A set of lungs. 

The project had no heart, no blood, and no flesh besides the mouth that required oxygenation, hence it had no need to breathe. However, he wanted it to be able to speak.

He wanted to hear it hiss and scream and roar.

He wanted it to reply when addressed.

The lungs, as well as the attached larynx, had been taken from a vyre - an optimal size for the project’s new body, and well suited for speaking through needled teeth and with a lashing tongue - and, like the mouth, had been stripped and regrown with Gregorovic’s cells. Yet, for now, they were kept separate from the mouth. The teeth would no doubt rend the lungs apart if they were kept in the same tank.

Carefully, he lifted the lid from the bell jar and inspected the lungs. They hung slack at the moment, devoid of air, yet still living and moist.

_Good._

Smiling, he remembered how it had been to first hear the sound the larynx made when air was forced through.

A bit of a surprise, to be fair. The sound was high, nasally, like nails being dragged along metal, and for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake. Perhaps the regrowing of the flesh had warped the larynx beyond anything that would produce a recognizable voice, human, vyre, or otherwise.

As that moment passed, however, he began to love the sound. In a way, it fit the twisted and monstrous image the rest of the project embodied.

He couldn’t wait for Gregorovic to hear it for the first time. Oh, the voice would no doubt be far, far different from the good doctor’s gravelly tenor, yet he was sure Gregorovic would grow to love it as he had.

Inflating the lungs, he cupped one with his left hand and placed the fingers of his right around the larynx, ready to manipulate the vocal cords.

Then, he ever so gently squeezed the lung, and the room was filled with a terrible, rattling shriek. It was soon joined by frantic squeaking and skittering, a desirable reaction from the mice nearby, Sliske thought.

This project was meant to be a predator, after all.

Reminding himself that he had further work to do that night, he tore his gaze away from the bell jar and the tank with its churning waters, turning instead to the table of jeweler’s tools.

Before casting his hands over the polished diamonds arranged there, he changed his gloves. Contamination of the diamonds, let alone anything at this stage, was unacceptable.

Collecting the diamonds had not been hard as such, but shaping them had proved to be an almighty nuisance. Who would have thought?

The nuisance had come from the care he had taken in cutting them, each one as identical to the next as he could manage by hand.

He had counted them out after cutting them, only using the ones that met his standards.

Ten for the collar.

Four for the crown.

The last one, the most perfect one, for the forehead, resting on a velvet pillow.

Perhaps it was to show off a bit of tribal pride. Perhaps, however, it was to show off his craftsmanship.

Picking up the final diamond, he lifted the nearby jeweler’s loupe to his eye and inspected it. Such beauty, when he looked up close. Such brilliance. Such fire. The quality of the cut was immaculate - the diamond shown as brilliantly as any respectable Mahjarrat crystal.

As he turned the diamond over and over, marvelling in its perfection, he couldn’t help the smile that split his face. He had worn so many hats during the making of this project: woodworker, crafter, painter, metalsmith, surgeon, biologist, animal handler. Yet, that was the way he liked it. Preferred it.

The truly wonderful thing about the project was that it was something he had made entirely himself, from scratch. There was no rotting corpse, no outline taken from an undead soul, none of that. It was all his design and his handiwork, every part of it perfected and made for a purpose. There was nothing prefabricated, nothing borrowed…save for the one dratted thing he simply could not make at home. The power source. There was no way to build one, not that he knew of it although he would have loved to, but fortunately, he had been able to get one for a bargain. Still had to pick it up — _no._ He’d get home delivery.

That was another thing to do. There were so many of things to do, and only one of him to do them all.

Yet, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Carefully, he put the final diamond and loupe back on their bed of velvet, fluffing the pillow for good measure and adjusting the lamp so that it struck the diamond just right, throwing glittering motes across the room.

Then he reached into a pile of papers at the edge of the desk, and with the precision of a man who knew exactly where everything was in the mess he had created, pulled out a small, slim book.

Bound with black leather, a pair of theater masks embossed on the front, it had a thoroughly chewed pencil marking the last used page.

The page was filled with short sentences, each marked by a neat bullet point. After every sentence, he had drawn a little square box. Some had been ticked. Some were empty.

Beneath the last one, he wrote _“Invite Gregorovic over,”_ and drew a square box after it. He smiled.

He liked drawing and ticking the little boxes. They gave him a sense of order and accomplishment in a mad and chaotic world.

In the tank, the mouth hung slack and satisfied, tongue lolling between needled teeth still spearing bits of flesh. On the surface of the crimson water, a tiny pink paw floated.

Soon now, he’d have to start feeding it bigger bites, to build up muscular strength.

He’d need a bigger cage.

And what would be more fitting than —? Yes, of course. He would not remove the power source from its vessel right away. That would be wasteful. Instead, why not let the flesh of the good doctor strengthen his future body? And would such suffering not in turn strengthen his— _yes._

A meal for the mouth every three days, starting with smaller portions, then proceeding to bigger ones as the jaws grew stronger. First one finger. Then two. Then the rest of the hand. A forearm, he might have to divide the first one into two meals. Upper arm. Legs. Thighs, and everything attached. Torso and head, starting with whatever parts the good doctor didn’t need.

When he was finished, Doctor Gregorovic would be somewhat smaller in size. Nevertheless, for the preceding weeks (how long he could stretch it?), he’d still take up a regrettable amount of space. Therefore, a bigger cage.

_So many things to do._


End file.
